Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 67

Georgia Stanway’s vision puts England on the path to salvation | Jonathan Liew

England’s performance against Spain was far from perfect but European Championship glory is now only two games away

Six minutes into extra time, and for the first time all evening, Georgia Stanway had room to breathe. It had been a taut and suffocating night, in many ways a horrible night, a night when the tension knots itself in the stomach like a tumour. But finally, a little after 10pm, the angst and the doubt and the foul throws and the blur of substitutions had sharpened to a single moment of clarity.

All game, Stanway had found her way blocked and thwarted by a forest of legs, by a barbed‑wire fence of red shirts. All game, Aitana Bonmatí in midfield had clung to her like a catsuit. One touch was a luxury. Two pretty much guaranteed you a bruise on the ankle. But now, as a Spanish move broke down and the ball slipped into her stride 40 yards from goal, there was only pure air in front of her.

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England no longer have anything to fear despite Spain’s fresh challenge | Jonathan Liew

Pre-tournament favourites can pose hosts new problems but England look better equipped than ever to handle them

This was the game England feared. Except they no longer fear it. From the moment the draw was made in October, the spectre of Group B loomed large: a potential nightmare quarter-final against either the eight-time champions Germany or the pre-tournament favourites, Spain. And yet if the past fortnight has exposed the flaws and inefficiencies in Jorge Vilda’s team, it has also put a spring in the step of the hosts, a team and a squad and a nation who walk scared of nobody.

The weight of expectation hangs heavily but by no means uncomfortably. England have been the outstanding team so far, scoring 14 goals in three games, overcoming the Covid-enforced absence of their coach, Sarina Wiegman, demolishing not just Norway but the very idea of Norwegian football, sending one of the game’s great powers spiralling into crisis. This is the sweet spot all national teams dream of: a tight-knit unit, form and confidence at their peak, a well-drilled first XI with plenty of room for further growth.

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Barcelona’s summer spree is not about building a team but selling a story | Jonathan Liew

Barça are spending money recklessly to maintain a myth, but in the modern superclub era it is unlikely to cost them dearly

Robert Lewandowski has signed a four-year deal with Barcelona, which means he probably has a good 18 months before they ask him to take a wage cut. Give or take. Naturally a good deal depends on how much deeper into their financial quarry Barcelona have managed to dig themselves in the meantime. Perhaps, alternatively, Lewandowski will be asked to defer a portion of his salary, or maybe amortise it into 420 easy monthly instalments, or accept payment in the form of $BAR fan tokens.

This is the perk of being the world’s biggest and most incoherent club: there is always another lever to squeeze. Bankrolled by the partial sale of their broadcast rights for the next 25 years, Barcelona have brought Lewandowski, Raphinha, Franck Kessié and Andreas Christensen to the Camp Nou this summer. César Azpilicueta, Jules Koundé and Bernardo Silva are also being pursued. In a way this is the most mystifying part of Barcelona’s spending spree, over and above the question of where the money is coming from. What sane player would join this ridiculous club in the first place? What have they been told? And just what, exactly, are Barcelona playing at?

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England and Spain set up quarter-final showdown – Women’s Football Weekly

Faye Carruthers, Suzanne Wrack, Tamsin Connor and Jonathan Liew wrap up the final set of games in Group A and B. Plus, Sid Lowe gives a flavour of the mood in Spain after they set up a meeting with the Lionesses

England finish Group A in style and continue with their plan to resurrect Record Breakers as Alessia Russo turns heads and Fran Kirby dazzles.

We also know their quarter-final opponents – despite sleeping through Spain’s win over Denmark in the Group of slow, painful death!

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Brilliant and unreadable Fran Kirby locks herself into England team | Jonathan Liew

Kirby stands alone as the tournament’s primary creative force with England facing a tougher assignment in the quarter-finals

As the old maxim goes, there are no easy games at this level of international football. And yet, and yet. Five years ago, Sarina Wiegman’s Dutch side scored 13 goals on their way to winning Euro 2017. Now Wiegman’s England side have matched that in their past two games, converting what looked and felt like a dangerously tight Group A into a sort of gleeful joyride.

Here Northern Ireland were the latest team to step into England’s headlights and palpably regret the experience. The scoreline certainly suggested a strong degree of comfort. The number of chances – 27 shots in total – suggested that with a little luck England might conceivably have surpassed their 8-0 demolition of Norway. But there was still plenty to be learned here, not least during an opening 40 minutes during which England fleetingly had a scrap on their hands.

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England roar into knockouts after 8-0 rout of Norway – Women’s Football Weekly

Faye Carruthers, Suzanne Wrack, Jonathan Liew and Ceylon Andi Hickman reflect on a historic 8-0 victory for England – with the help of Norwegian Lars Sivertsen. Plus all the fallout from Group D, and the end of the line for Northern Ireland

England are the first team into the knock-out stages of Euro 2022 as they smash Norway in a record-breaking 8-0 win.

Rampant, ruthless, scintillating, super, smashing - but Sarina Wiegman just describes it as “Great!”

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Bazball isn’t a philosophy or blueprint – it is a response to a game in decay | Jonathan Liew

England’s head coach may not like the term, but the phenomenon is a reflection of the times in which we live

Apparently Brendon McCullum hates the term “Bazball”. This is, of course, exactly as it should be. One of the cardinal rules of Bazball, perhaps even its defining motif, is that no established narrative must be allowed to stand unchallenged. Anything you think you know about Bazball is wrong.

Everything ever spoken about it has been wrong. Bazball is about making up your own rationale as you go, and so any attempt to pin it down, to define it or even name it, must necessarily be doomed to failure.

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England shatter the window of possibility with a giddy delirious win | Jonathan Liew

After watching the 8-0 win against the former European champions, it was reasonable to feel a little concussed

The half-time whistle feels like an act of mercy. As Norway’s traumatised players sprint down the tunnel towards the four solid walls of the dressing room, England saunter off the turf with broad smiles, trying and failing to pretend this is still a meaningful contest.

On the sidelines, the St John’s Ambulance staff are chuckling behind their masks. In the stands, mouths are dropping agape and there is simply not enough air in the stadium to fill them. Up in the gantry, holding a BBC microphone, Jonas Eidevall looks utterly stunned, like he’s just seen a sheep doing geometry. The mood is giddy, bordering on surreal, bordering on delirious.

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Prepare to fail: the transfer survival plan for new Premier League teams

Fulham, Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest must take care in the transfer market as relegation remains most likely fate

To this day Tony Khan thinks Fulham had a good transfer window in the summer of 2018. Which is sweet. The untrained eye might be tempted to regard the £100m spent on Jean Michaël Seri, André-Frank Zambo Anguissa, Alfie Mawson, Andre Schürrle and at least half a dozen others as one of the great spending failures of the modern Premier League era. Particularly when you consider what happened next: relegation with 26 points, three separate managers and a full-blown fistfight between Aleksandar Mitrovic and Aboubakar Kamara that apparently began during meditation in a team yoga session.

For Khan, the investment made in 2018 – which also included Mitrovic and Joe Bryan, who scored the winning goal in the 2020 playoff final – was a key reason Fulham were back in the Premier League two years later. “We spent on the future,” he said. “I am very happy with the players I bought.” Which encapsulates the dilemma for promoted clubs when it comes to navigating the market. How far do you go in trying to chase the dream? How much is too much? And to what extent are you preparing not merely for a tilt at the top tier but the likely relegation that follows?

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England offer record crowd glimpse of new dawn for women’s football | Jonathan Liew

Old Trafford was a bracing, stunning sight before kick-off amid the belief this could genuinely be the start of something

Trailblazers. Pioneers. Game-changers. History-makers. Yes: England scored a first‑half goal and began a major tournament without looking flustered or getting booed off the pitch at full-time. It was comfortable rather than easy, composed rather than fluent. But as England completed their lap of honour in front of 69,000 chilly but cheering fans, the sense was of a team that were simply relieved to be off and running, determined to ride this wave of noise all the way to the end.

For all England’s busyness, their 15 shots on goal, perhaps the moment that best encapsulated them came just seconds from the end. Deep into the 90 minutes Leah Williamson received the ball in defence, with Austrian shirts flooding forward in an attempt to hunt her down. If ever there was a time for getting rid, it was here. Instead Williamson looked up and pinged a precise 40-yard pass all along the ground to Georgia Stanway. On a night of peak pressure and peak expectation England kept their heads, and somehow this felt like the most crucial victory of all.

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